Lightning Rod: An Ethical Nightmare
by Pseudinymous
Summary: As a storm rages through Amity Park, Vlad is left to deal with one of his own storms in the Ghost Zone; a rebellion. Frail, bloody and weak, throwing himself through the Fenton Portal as his last means of escape didn't turn out well for anyone - especially when a certain Fenton family member begins to find out things they shouldn't be finding out, with terrifying consequences.
1. Part 1

**The Obligatory Author's Note:  
**Note that the story title is indeed supposed to use a ; rather than a :, but FFN won't allow it. Sigh.

This is another escapade from my old account, rewritten to be posted here. It consists of two parts only - for some reason, I seem to have more of a soft spot for it than other stories, so I thought it'd be kinda poor of me not to treat it to a revision. Happy reading!

**The Obligatory Blanket Disclaimer:**  
I don't think the owner of Danny Phantom would be writing fanfiction about it, do you? Thusly, I do not own this cartoon.

* * *

**Lightning Rod; An Ethical Nightmare  
**A fanfic by Pseudinymous

**~ Part 1 ~**

* * *

It was a bad day in Amity Park.

However, 'bad' didn't seem to be the right descriptor. If anything, a storm like this was barely short of a hurricane.

The first thing to be thought of was the lightning, shot off in so many different directions at once, illuminating the dark black clouds as it tore through them in great flashes. Down by the gallon came the rain, clogging up drains with all the litter it had quickly overflowed them with. Finally, wind howled in one of the biggest gales Amity Park had seen in years. It all combined into something that, the citizens had decided, was far worse than any ghost attack.

Fenton Works had already taken a fair thrashing from the storm, mainly due to the wind catching under the mammoth-sized, precariously built Emergency Op Centre. Not even the eccentric Maddie and Jack Fenton could take their eyes away from it, looming dangerously overhead.

The whole Fenton family had been spending their day doing their best to strengthen the foundations of the house, while Danny and Jazz had been assigned the task of boarding up the windows as best they could – without being blown away. During the worse parts of the storm, they sheltered inside the basement. After all, the sound of the Op Centre creaking on the roof was never a good one.

However, there was one thing they didn't even _think_ to safeguard against. Not in all this weather.

The Fenton Ghost Portal was wide open... and nobody was doing anything about it.

* * *

Mayor Vladimir Masters, currently living in the richer section of town, didn't have nearly as many problems with the weather as everyone else was.

On closer analysis, however, this was because he simply _wasn't there_ to witness the roof of his mansion fly off somewhere over the rainbow, or to notice countless irreplaceable paintings flutter about in the gale. His presence didn't even grace the flood that was streaming inside. Right now, he was – and had been for the past few days – stranded in another dimension.

The Ghost Zone was certainly a place for the unexpected; Vlad had never doubted that. The problem here was that his own arrogance disallowed him to extrapolate the direct result of his own power; this wasn't a grudging respect from the inhabitants, it was the calm before the rebellion.

Fifty hours had flown, zapped, shocked and beaten by, ghosts not attacking him one at a time, but all at once. Holding his own against this many disgruntled spirits was a feat to talk about in and of itself, but he couldn't do it forever. Gradually, Vlad's efforts were becoming increasingly futile, and there seemed twice as many to trump for every wave he defeated. He wanted to give up, surrender.

But... was that a glimmer of hope? Through a ragged, drooping eye, Vlad saw the Fenton's steely electric ghost portal off in the distance. If he could _just maybe _move the right ghosts out of the road, then he'd _just maybe _have a chance to escape. This was it. One last struggle.

All the pain aching through his body, the frustration, the sorrow, the desperation... as Vlad tapped into the very last reserves of his energy, they combined into one.

The result struggled towards the palm of his hand, not a normal ectoblast but one that burned with a vicious pink flame. This new kind of energy attack flared as he fired it, the rebound feeling for more like that of a cannonball than it visibly should have. Vlad drooped, depleted. And then he looked up, just a little, just to see...

The wall of ghosts it had been aimed at suddenly weren't there anymore. They drifted off, barely keeping form, unmoving.

He might have had no energy, but nonetheless Vlad scrambled to fly to the portal – possibly faster than he'd ever flown before. He couldn't even hold his ghost form long enough to get through, and so did the equivalent of throwing himself in, landing in the basement arranged in more or less a scrambled, lightly smoking heap.

He reached for that all-important lever to close the portal doors, one last reach...

Finally, he closed his eyes and passed out.

* * *

Danny, exhausted from boarding the upstairs windows, stumbled down to the lab where he could rest. The basement in many ways was built like a bomb shelter; it couldn't survive a blast from the inside, like a filtrator explosion, but on the other hand it could hold its own against several outside invasion forces, if it wanted to. His mother had even built it with lead lining.

The small, teenage half-ghost stopped dead, however, when he saw his archenemy lying unconscious on the floor, just next to the portal lever. His sharp black business suit was torn up, his hair askew... and he graced cuts, bruises, scars and scrapes over every conceivable inch of his body.

"..._Vlad_?"

They mayor of Amity Park didn't answer. Danny looked around for any evidence that might tell him what might have happened, and the only conclusion he could come to was that Vlad had been beaten almost to death in the Ghost Zone and been forced to escape through _their _portal. At least he'd had the common decency to shut the doors behind him, although Danny strongly suspected that was more out of selfishness than selflessness.

There was no other choice – he wasn't going to exploit even Vlad in a state like this. He'd have to tell his parents.

* * *

Vladimir Masters, multi-billionaire mayor of Amity Park, awoke on top of the Fenton's dissection table.

With an agonised groan, Vlad rolled over and clutched a particularly painful part on his side. He'd been bludgeoned in that location more than several times, and he could tell that it had _already _become a massive bruise. This didn't matter, however, when you put things in perspective. There were parts of him that had been bandaged up, and his suit was completely blood-soaked. He was quite hungry, and his head was spinning, just to add to the trouble.

So busy identifying the list of things wrong with his body, Vlad hadn't noticed that the Fentons were watching, Maddie and Jack's necks arched over in a sort of worried curiosity. That said, Maddie appeared more worried about correctly injecting him with something. Jasmine was there, too, and appeared to be doing her best to make him comfortable...

... Danny, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found.

Jack began to grin broadly, making excited waving motions with his arms. Then, totally contrary to all feasible forms of logic, grabbed Vlad around the shoulders and hugged him, managing to hit all the wrong cuts and bruises in the process. It stole the breath out of Vlad's mouth, made his eyes pop, and otherwise rendered him even more incapacitated than he already was. There was no denying it; within the unforgiving friendly grasp of Jack, there was nothing to be but helpless.

"Glad to have you back, V-Man!"

"...J- J- Jack..." Vlad whimpered, desperately resisting the urge to phase through the ghost hunter. It was only Maddie who managed to save him, who sharply told off her husband for causing even more pain. Jack eventually listened to reason and put his old college buddy down, a sheepish smile covering his face.

"Sorry... just glad to know you're alright," Jack shrugged. "We didn't know whether you'd even wake up or not."

"Jack's right..." Maddie frowned, lightly brushing her fingers over Vlad's forehead. "It really is a miracle you survived. We were about to call an ambulance, but our scanner indicated that your collapsed lung – it was just... it was _fixing _itself. That was just a minute before you woke up. I've... honestly never seen something so absurd."

"I guess we'll never know..." Vlad stated, quite weakly. His consciousness was evidently going to refuse to continue for much longer – he could already feel it petering out. With one last effort, he gave the woman he loved a small, slightly longing smile, and then succumbed to the peaceful, quiet, painless and most importantly _Jack-free _oblivion.

Unfortunately, he found himself woken during the middle of the night by the Op Centre's awful creaking sounds. The great rolls of thunder only added to the effect.

Still, there was no denying that he now felt much better than he had beforehand. In fact, most of his wounds had already healed properly – quite a possibility, since his ghost half granted him insane healing speeds, an ability for which he was eternally grateful. Especially after a beating like that; rightfully, he should have been dead.

This didn't stop Vlad from being totally drained – he barely had enough energy to move, let alone get up – but the sight of the spare ecto-filtrators sitting on the laboratory shelf was a promising one, and just sufficiently motivating to make him slump to his feet. A filtrator meant a power source... maybe not so much for the portal they serviced, but to a ghost, certainly. Vlad didn't hesitate in the slightest when it came to dipping his finger in, knowing that instant replenishment was going to be the only way to bring him back up to scratch anytime soon.

"... V-Man?"

Vlad nearly dropped the glass capsule altogether, the call echoing through the basement. He stayed still, like a statue, hoping to God that Jack wouldn't notice him, that he'd just walk away... there hadn't been anyone in the lab when he'd woken up! Maybe he should have kept more of an ear out for surveillance...

"What are you doing with that...?" Jack hesitated. "... It's an ecto-filtrator. You _shouldn't _be doing that..."

"I'm, uh, _checking_, Jack." Assured Vlad, trying his best to convince _himself _that that was indeed the case. "Just checking to see that nothing contaminated it. One of the ghosts that got through seemed dangerously interested in the device after I got thrown out of the portal."

"... You're checking it... with your bare _finger_? That liquid burns human skin."

"You see-"

"Don't lie." Jack cut him off, although softly, and gulped. "We're such great friends; we shouldn't lie to each other. Vlad, I... found out. No one else knows that when I took a blood test, I looked, and... your cells, they're combined with ectoplasm. That's why you healed so quickly. I guess... sort of... I mean, figuratively speaking... you're half ghost."

Vlad stood there, stunned. He could feel those bright, angry eyes surfacing to the top, but pushed them straight back down with all his might. Was there no way of convincing someone otherwise after something like this? No, there probably wasn't. What was he supposed to do? Vlad stuttered a few times, before closing his mouth and deciding that the best course of action was to avoid saying anything at all. Getting found out... had never been a part of his anticipations.

A very awkward silence followed. Jack stared directly at Vlad. Vlad looked at just about everything that wasn't Jack. Eventually, the usually bumbling man shuffled his feet and patted the bewildered half ghost on the back.

"It was the accident in college, wasn't it?"

Vlad began to chew his lip, an uncharacteristic nervous tick. The only option his brain was giving him was 'Kill Jack', but he didn't want to do that. Not now, anyway. There'd always be time for Jack-killing later.

"Yes, but thankfully there hasn't been any other effects." Vlad managed. "Unfortunately... the ectoplasm in my blood requires occasional replenishment, if I'm to function properly. But as you know... I forgave you for this quite some time ago."

Jack looked even worse, hearing that. "... Actually, I think it's affected you more than you know. You've been asleep for ten or so hours, but already you've almost completely healed. That, and... I swear I saw you shift out of phase..."

_That's it! He knows too much!_ Vlad's mind screamed, gritting his teeth. Something would have to be done about Jack in case he told anyone; _especially _Maddie, which would most-likely wind up happening sooner or later. Vlad's thoughts looped like a mantra, always resonating with the core issue – the need to have Jack well and truly dead.

"Fine, Jack, you're _such _a good friend, after all... I'll show you what that accident did to me."

For the rather bulky ghost hunter, the change was a mix of terrifically amazing and amazingly terrifying. None other than the Wisconsin Ghost stood before him, glaring its intense and gleaming red eyes straight into Jack's own. A ghost _form_? It should have been impossible! And even so, of all the ghost forms Vlad could have had... why did it have to be _this_ one?

"You turned me into a _monster_, Jack Fenton!" Vlad hissed. "You the proceeded to _steal _the love of my life while I was rotting away in hospital. And _then _you rubbed my nose in it _each _and _every _time I saw you since! Even when, _even when_ I attempted to have you assassinated!"

"V-Man..."

"Don't you _dare _call me that!" Vlad spat, throwing the back of his gloved hand straight into Jack's face. With freshly replenished energy reserves, the strength of the attack sent Jack careening across the laboratory, knocking several important-looking beakers clean off the table behind him. Vlad glared, eyes aglow, and then he whispered, "Jack Addison Fenton, _fear me_, for I will tear you apart just as you tore apart my own hopes and dreams. Don't worry – I hear you're a fan of things being separated _molecule-by-molecule_..."

Jack said nothing, finding enough will only to stare at his old college friend's rage. It burned within Vlad, nearly tangible enough to leap out and grab him. Jack couldn't even work out whether he was scared, sad or a mixture between the two.

Horrifyingly strong pink ectoplasmic energy leapt from the palms of Vlad's two hands, crackling and sparking, maybe even smouldering. It flickered like a flame, acted as though it were alive, and seemed to hold a promise more certain than any lesser enemy – and that was all of them. This sort of shot? It had more than the intention of killing. Disintegration was also in mind.

The commotion going on downstairs had roused all but the mother of the household, and Jazz, who had previously been pouring herself some hot cocoa in the kitchen, was beginning to get an unhealthy curiosity bug. Danny had been woken, too, but unlike his sibling suspected something much more sinister. So he dropped down through the floor, keeping himself totally invisible.

The invisibility didn't have a chance to last long. Danny forgot about it completely and nearly fell out of the air when he saw who Vlad's glowing palms were aimed at – thinking went out the window. The teenager immediately dived at the demonic half-ghost and tackled him to the ground, throwing Vlad's aim well off target.

Unfortunately, Vlad had already begun the process of firing the deadly ray, and instead of hitting Jack –

A mug of cocoa rolled down the rest of the stairs, spilling its contents over the laboratory floor.


	2. Part 2

**The Obligatory Author's Note:**  
Hey, I'm back again with another update. About time, right? Eheh... anyway, this actually took quite a while to rewrite, even though... on the whole, both this version and the previous one are quite similar. Ah well. I'm much happier with this, nonetheless. It's a little strange going through old work, and then thinking "What the heck was I on when I wrote that?"... xD Never mind.

In any case, part two of two! The end result.

* * *

**Lightning Rod; An Ethical Nightmare  
**A fanfic by Pseudinymous

**~ Part 2 ~**

* * *

Danny screamed; it was the only thing he could think of doing. The cogs and gears in his brain stopped altogether, leaving him frozen in midair, shaking. This was something he saw in stop-motion; the red-haired girl he knew and loved as his sister slowly, agonisingly, clutching the base of her neck as she was blasted backwards and slammed into the stairs.

The mug she'd been carrying quickly fell from her loosened grip, the once-contained cocoa proceeding to fly through the air and splatter over the floor.

Jazz gritted her teeth together. With all the effort left in her body, she brought her head back up, her bulging aqua eyes staring into those of _Uncle Vlad_'s. But his were remorseless, red, _empty... _she attempted to say something, but her voice and her breath had been well and truly snatched away.

Jack hadn't seen what had happened around the corner, but his daughter's strangled gasp was quite enough, alongside the ghost kid's horrified scream. It seemed to rebound around the room, coming from just about everywhere but the place it had originated.

The last thing Jazz said was nothing but a whisper, something that would have required the most exceptionally sharp hearing to detect. It was a very simple word, but one that struck remorse into Vlad's heart for the first time in over twenty years.

"_Why..._?"

The teenage daughter of the love of his life closed her eyes forever.

Danny finally regained possession of his ailing mental control, diving so quickly towards Jazz that he looked more like a black and white streak. He checked everything; her pulse, her breathing, even a heartbeat! But it was useless; as much as Danny refused to accept what he'd just witnessed, her very presence was... lost.

Instinctively, Jack shoved Danny right out of the way, crashing down before his fallen daughter and performing exactly the same checks his son had just done. Of course, it turned up nothing, as Jack's face plainly indicated when he turned his head to face his old friend.

"Call an ambulance."

"Jack, I-"

"_CALL ONE!_" Jack bellowed, loud enough to be heard by all of Amity Park, even atop the thunder. An awful, crushing silence followed, where the only sound remaining was the eerie, distant creaking of the roof.

Vlad didn't move. He just stood there, becoming paler than his skin usually allowed. Jack eventually, though not without questioning himself on why he was doing this, turned to Danny with a pleading look.

The half-ghost looked up, trying to get a grip of himself by rubbing away the few green ectoplasmic tears that had collected in his eyes. "Dad, get mom and tell her what happened. And – and while you're upstairs, call 911. I'll look after Jazz."

Jack looked at him with the kind of shocked curiosity that seriously worried Danny. And then – something that worried him even more – a sudden, though short-lived, dawning look of enlightenment. It was only after Danny's father had raced up the stairs that he realised his very small, very _important _mistake.

Not that he cared.

Put in perspective, it didn't matter. Every single one of Danny's thoughts looped straight back to his sister; he didn't even notice or care about the vampiric ghost behind him, trying instead to hold Jazz at a point where the stairs weren't grating into her back. Not that it helped anything but... it was Jazz, he _had _to...

But then it really hit him. Vlad had done this. Even though Danny had knocked his aim off, he was still aiming to kill his father and therefore a member of his family. Someone would have died at that man's hand tonight, whether Danny had been there or not.

... What had Jazz done to deserve this?

Danny carefully picked up his sister and placed her on the floor in what looked like a more comfortable position. Finally, he acknowledged the elder half-ghost's presence, a weight in his eyes suggesting that they were containing quite a bit more than tears.

"You killed her."

There was ice in Danny's words, and Vlad couldn't answer to that. It wasn't that he was overcome by remorse – he'd gotten over that in less than a minute. Instead, he was overcome by shock. He hadn't meant to kill the girl at all...

Danny stared at him, somehow taking on an unearthly and almost demonic appearance. That sparkle in his eyes had nothing to do with tears, either.

Vlad knitted his brow together, although the movement itself was hard to pick. Both hybrids stared at each other for an uncomfortably long time, their expressions unreadable but with an ice in the air that was colder than the chill of the Antarctic winds. Anyone who had've been watching would never have seen it coming, and yet, at the same time, what was going to happen was blindingly obvious...

The younger's face twisted into something that could only have been summoned from the depths of hell, and dived. Vlad barely had time to react before his I-wish-this-was-my-son had him pinned to the ground, snarling.

"You killed my sister!"

"Daniel-!"

"You killed her! Jazz! You killed Jazz! I'll kill_ you_!"

Danny's hands headed straight for his archenemy's throat, barely thinking. Before now, he'd never thought he'd ever want to kill someone, to feel that horrible urge to reach into someone's chest and rip out their heart; not even for Vlad. But at this moment, it was unbelievable – a rage like no other Danny had ever felt, even against the threat of his future self. Because this time... this time, someone really had died.

"It was _your _fault, Daniel!"

He froze, staring into Vlad's eyes with a mixture of horror and disbelief.

"You heard me! If you hadn't pushed me aside, then that ray would never have hit poor young Jasmine."

"You _bastard_!" Danny screamed. Tears he'd only somewhat been trying to control now had full reign on his cheeks, leaving long salty trails behind. "You were trying to kill my dad! It's ALL your fault! If you weren't trying to kill him, then Jazz wouldn't be...! You bastard!"

"You're trying to give the blame away when it really is your fault, Daniel. At least _face up _to what you caused, blundering about just like your idiot of an old man."

"_Take it back!_"

"You _know _it, Daniel!"

What Vlad exactly aimed to achieve with these mind games was up for discussion. Was he trying to move the blame to Danny simply for the benefit of his own mental wellbeing, or alternatively, did he perhaps genuinely believe Danny was the one to blame? Whatever the purpose, this harsh and unrealistic judgement only seemed to provoke the teen, who wound up punching and shattering Vlad's nose with all his might.

The crunching sound was hideous, and the blood plentiful. Vlad's nose was bent to its side, and while one may have argued about Vlad's motivation for infuriating Danny as he did, one certainly could not have argued against the brokenness of the vampiric half ghost's nose.

The older hybrid choked, spitting out a decent spatter of reddish green blood, and glared at his junior. Danny might have been fuelled by the stuff only seen from within the depths of hell, but Vlad knew he could overpower Danny any day of the year. In a swift motion, he threw himself to his feet and elbowed Danny in the mouth, knocking the boy to the ground.

Any lesser person would have quickly become unconscious.

"Yo're dust a silliy li'le boy 'oo needs do ged 'is brioribies in orda!" screamed Vlad. In his mind it had sounded really quite menacing, but even he had to admit, through a broken nose it was about the least menacing thing he'd ever heard. Somehow, all the credibility drained from the statement when it sounded as if he had a very bad cold.

Vlad wasn't on an even playing ground for long, however. In the time it was still taking him to recover from having his nose fractured, Danny had already dived for one of the tables up against the walls, where some weapons had been left unattended from his parents' various tinkerings.

Danny didn't know what the weapon he picked up did, but one thing was for sure; just about everything in this lab _hurt_.

There was no choice for Vlad but to flee. While he didn't have anymore of an idea about what the weapon did than his opposition, he wasn't willing to become its first test subject, either. Any attempt to blast the blasted thing out of Danny's hands would need the sort of precision aiming he didn't have time for. Maybe the sky wasn't such a good place to be during a storm like this, but he trusted his chances even less in such a tiny, enclosed area.

Danny had it aimed and was almost ready to fire, but the billionaire was too quick for him. He'd already jumped into the air and shot through the roof of the basement, leaving the smaller half ghost aiming at nothing but metallic tiles. He did not growl, or curse profanities into the air, or give up. In fact, he was glad Vlad was running. That meant he was _scared_.

However, he hesitated before following. Danny had suddenly begun to realise at least part of the motivation the other ghosts had for scaring people half to death. Under normal circumstances, it wasn't a pleasant thought. Under these, it was perfect. And then he left, holding the enormous weapon tightly within his grip, and allowing intangibility to pour through his body.

His father had gone unnoticed when he'd come back down the stairs with Maddie. Now, he saw Danny Fenton in a very different light – especially when he burst into a solid mass of concrete, metal and a number of other very strong materials with absolutely no physical resistance.

* * *

The whole of Amity Park eventually came to know about Danny Phantom and Vlad Plasmius's fight on that wretched day, although few actually saw it with their own two eyes.

There was only one person who actually saw the fight in full – Jack. Maddie had boarded an ambulance with Jazz, despite the hopelessness that had overcome everyone trying to bring a living breath back into the girl. Jack, on the other hand, had followed the ghost fight through town in the Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle, finding that driving like a maniac was a lot easier when the other drivers were off the roads due to the weather, and a lot harder with the storm pushing the 'RV' in all kinds of unwanted directions.

Up in the sky, Danny wasn't fighting for his life. Vlad was.

The wind churned, blowing the combatants the wrong way, causing them to misfire, misconnect, and become more lost than anything else. Still Danny persisted, frustratedly trying to shoot at what he, through heavily limited visibility, thought was Vlad. The weapon _was _voted No. 1 in the yearly contest by _The Ghost Hunter's Association of Ridiculously Unnecessary Firepower_ (and with just reasoning) – surely it would _eventually _connect?

Five minutes passed, and still neither one of them had actually managed to hurt each other. The storm was blowing them around like paper, and lightning was a constant threat. Especially, Jack thought uncomfortably, considering Danny was holding a highly-powered ectoplasmic weapon that had been constructed mostly out of _metal_.

And all through this, not the slightest amount of banter was heard. Not even a single dryly-said comment, sarcastic statement, or any signs of any vocal chord use at all. They were locked in an eerie silent combat, somehow in a place that ignored the overbearing sound of the storm that swirled above.

Vlad's bloody nose was dripping everywhere, but the rain was so strong; it was merely washed away. By the time it'd hit the ground, it was unnoticeable. The pain, Vlad thought bitterly, was _not _gone. And it certainly didn't get any better when Danny hit him squarely in the face with a devastatingly large neon energy beam.

It was quite literally like being struck over the head with a flying mallet _that was on fire_. If Vlad's nose wasn't broken before, it _certainly_ was now. The electrical charge in the ammunition forced his hair to stand on end quite a bit more than it usually did, and his face had been turned into something that appearance-wise, could have easily been used for torture.

Thankfully for Vlad, Danny seemed to be losing his grip on the gun. Something that large was an incredible liability with so much wind, and it had already taken up much of Danny's effort to prevent himself from dropping it. Large amounts of firepower certainly came at a price.

Vlad bit through the pain in his head – which felt more like it was one enormous tumour – and used this opportune moment to his advantage. Before Danny could even think about reacting, Vlad swooped over and ripped it from his gloved fingers. The younger's eyes widened in fear.

Vlad was, when you got right down to it, forty-something with at least twenty years of experience. Danny was but a fragile teenager. One teen didn't stand much of a chance against a gun like that; the shot was enough to leave Vlad looking as though he'd been hit by several trucks; he hated to think what it'd do to _him_...

And so the fight reversed, this time with Danny fleeing for his life and Vlad chasing quickly in pursuit. The anger was obvious – each move was highly calculated and yet completely and utterly desperate at the same time.

A mass of shots was fired in Danny's general direction, and he avoided all of them. Barely.

Jack had trouble keeping up even with the RV as the two half ghosts streaked through the clouds. Their directions changed in a sporadic fashion; dodging and attacking each other combined with gale-force winds took them on a frightening adventure all over Amity Park, before finally they ended up somewhere near the Western Side, near where the old abandoned mining shaft was.

This small fact, of course, hardly stopped them. And although the banter never really even got started, their intentions were clear. Both parties knew it was going to be kill or be killed. Danny switched back to the offensive, deciding that that was going to be the only way to pull the weapon out of Vlad's grip. Not that it was clean – the first ectoblast he fired went sailing off in the wrong direction, doing nothing but help the older hybrid when it came to determining Danny's position.

Vlad refrained from smiling due to the delightfully furious throb within the muscles and bone of his face, but even without any expression, it was obvious he was gloating. Danny tried desperately to hear what is archenemy was saying when he finally did speaktf, but found that the storm was simply too loud. Still, he kept on listening, trying to pick it up...

At least, until the huge ectoplasmic weapon, and consequently Vlad, attracted a thick, unforgiving bolt of lightning. It lasted only a second, but that was easily enough to knock him cold.

Vlad's one saving grace was that it might have been the first time he'd honestly attracted anything.

Danny's jaw dropped as Vlad plummeted a few hundred metres through the air, bright pink sparks shooting from his body as he went. Gravity wasn't merciful on a half ghost when he was unconscious, and neither was whatever remained of the tattered laws of physics. It was hopeless to hold onto his ghost form in such a state, which led to him reverting to his usual suited self before drilling a few inches into the ground directly next to the mine-shaft.

Things were already bad for the likes of Vlad Masters, but that didn't mean the universe didn't have just one more thing in store for the helpless ghost. He was just close enough to the edge so that, when the wind blew...

Into the shaft he fell.

Jack couldn't get anywhere near where Vlad had fallen due to most of the area having been fenced off, but it certainly didn't stop his son. Danny landed just above the huge hole in the ground and stared straight down; if there was a bottom, he couldn't see it. And then it dawned on him...

The source of all his hurt, his pain, his sadness... it was lying pathetically at the bottom of this shaft, helpless, and probably rather close to death. It was another one of those times where Danny's brain simply _stopped_. All the gears and sprockets clicked out of place and jammed, leaving him little more than a glowing statue.

In desperation, Jack broke through the inhibiting fence and ran over to scoop up his son, narrowly avoiding slipping into the mine himself. Without saying a word, he took to holding his son tightly, rocking back and forth.

Maybe if it hadn't have been raining, Danny might have felt three fat splodges splatter on the black part of his jumpsuit.

A few moments of silence were held before Jack steered him back in the direction of the RV. No one dared look back at the mine. Instead, Jack decided to look down at the being he'd been wishing to dissect for well over a year, and decided that Danny deserved yet another strangle-hug as he was placed in the back seat of the Assault Vehicle.

But... something struck Danny. He'd wanted to kill Vlad, and he'd wanted to do it as slowly and painfully and _frightfully _as possible, limb from limb, atom-by-atom... but now he wasn't so sure. He was _Vlad_, but... Danny was leaving him to, quite literally, die in a hole.

Didn't that make him no better than Vlad himself?

"Dad?"

"Yes...?" Jack hesitated cautiously, looking into his son's eyes. His son's unnaturally _green _eyes...

"I think I should save Vlad... get him out of the mine."

Jack wore a pained expression; it tore his conscience in half, this statement. But after today... there was only one answer. He looked away from the boy's eyes, and with a dark look, he replied; "Danny... sometimes... when some people are in peril... sometimes... it's better for everyone if we just leave them that way."

Whether his father's statement was true or not, Danny really didn't know...

_The End_

* * *

**The Obligatory Ending Note**:  
Man, am I glad that's over. Been half-meaning to rewrite this thing for years, and I've finally done it. Anyway, thanks to all you folk for tagging along for the ride! Hopefully I can write something else you might find interesting some other time. :)

Feel free to review, praise, criticise, and grill me if I've done wrong by you. :P

Anyway, see you next time!


End file.
